The Daily Beast Podcast - MAGA Mike Johnson Is Shameless in More Ways Than One

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

This week on The New Abnormal, Semafor’s Washington Bureau Chief Benjy Sarlin tells us the who, what, and why that is the Republican Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson. Then, MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner breaks down all the latest developments in the many legal troubles of Donald Trump. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedin, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What an excellent show we have today.

Washington Bureau Chief for Semaphore, Benji Sarlin, is here to tell us the who, what, and why, that is the Republican Speaker of the House, Maga Mike Johnson. Then we'll talk to MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirshner to break down all the latest developments in the oh so many legal troubles of one Donald J. Trump. But first, let's have some fun. So, Andy, I don't know about you, but I miss the days when I didn't have such apprehension every time my phone buzzed at any point during the day. I miss being relaxed. I miss my shoulders being down and not having a knot in my stomach. And none of that is changing anytime soon as we have just experienced another mass shooting

that took place this week in Maine. There's not a lot to say about this, except it just seems as if we consistently live in Groundhogs Day when we're counting the number of people that are slayed at one time and two separate places by multiple gunmen. I don't know. I miss the days when the buzzing on my phone didn't spell impending doom. Yeah, as you said, those days are long gone.

I'm not sure we'll ever see them again, honestly. I've lost track of how many times we've opened a show by saying another horrific mass killing. And this one is, as of recording, there's still a manhunt going on for this guy, Robert Card, 18 dead, 13 injured. This is a guy who had mental health issues, who was hearing voices, and who, unfortunately, is also apparently a skilled marksman. as he's being described. And it's just, we're out of things to say about these. I mean, they just, they're horrific. And it just feels like they're never, ever going to stop.

And there are some people in Washington who want to do something about this, but not enough. It's amazing when you can't have consensus on, you know, mass death. But anyway, we do have consensus on something, which is that the House finally has a speaker who is, as you all were telling me before we recorded, I continue to say, I'm confused about why people are shocked that Representative Mike Johnson is as awful and has a record as awful as everyone else inside of the Republican Party. But you all, Jesse and Andy, wanted to tell me that,

no, no, Danielle, he's the worst of the worst. And I'm like, so let me check his stats real quick. Homophobe, check, transphobe, check. supported the Muslim ban. Check. Believes that there should be a national abortion ban. Check. Let's see.

Voted to overturn the 2020 election. Check. Was ushered in in 2016 on the Maga Wave and Trump train. Check. So he checks all of the boxes. So, Andy, I'm going to turn it over to you to tell me and everyone else why he is even worse than all of the boxes that these other motherfuckers check off as well. There's a couple things. And later in the show, I'll get into some of the factual stuff with semaphores, Benji Sarlin. But just for starters, okay, this guy, not only is he an election denier, he is, as a lot of people have described him, he was one of the key architects of the election denialism strategy. So this is not just a guy who went along and voted stupidly. He was one of the guys devising the strategy.

and coming up with the plans and basically not even saying, well, I feel like there were some irregularities. He was full on Dominion lawsuit stuff. So there's that. I mean, we're talking about, again, one of the one of the ring leaders in that. The other thing is, I think it's just that he does, like a lot of the Republicans check a lot of the boxes, but sometimes they don't check them all. This guy really does check them all as you just laid out. He is a hardcore, evangelist. And by that, I mean, it's not a grift for him. He is a full-on true believer in his religion to the point where he wants things like a national divorce ban and stuff like that. And he is very much in line with Christian nationalism, et cetera. So we are talking about a guy who not only

wants a national abortion ban and basically wants to criminalize homosexual acts. This is a guy who full on wants our country to be ruled by the word of God as interpreted by him and his fellow co-religionists. It really does, I think, jump him into another level from even people like a Matt Gates or someone like that. And we're talking here about levels of awfulness. We're not talking about, Well, some of these people are good and some of them are bad. They're all bad. They're all awful. We're just talking about levels of awfulness. And I think the other thing is, as Jesse has been saying, which I think is a really good point, Johnson is sort of like the George Santos speaker in that all the opposition research on George Santos came after it was too late and he'd been elected. Mike Johnson is a guy who has floated under the radar. We've never heard his name in the same way we hear like Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gates, Jim Jordan, Steve, Steve, Glees, people like that. And he's just sort of quietly been there believing all of these awful things

and pushing all of these awful policies. So I think it's all just coming out now at the point where, you know, to get to your point, Danielle, it's like, yeah, nobody expected this guy to be good. But it's like, holy shit, this guy, he's been doing all of this. And his level of true awfulness was just not really high in the public consciousness until now. So I think that's what it is. And the reality is he's emblematic of the entirety of the Republican Party and the ideology and philosophy that they've been embracing outwardly over the last eight plus years. For me, it's about the hysterics around it that I'm just over. Stop being shocked.

I just want people to stop being shocked by how debased like the Republican Party is and the people that they are anointing as their leaders. This is who the fuck they are. So whether he is Mike Pence Light in terms of his evangelicalism, whether he is Matt Gate Light, you know, Jim Jordan Light, or like the most aggressive of all of them, because unlike Donald Trump, who will espouse the same commentary, but you know that he's a grifting, lying piece of trash, and this guy believes it, the fact is, is that the entirety of the Republican Party believes this. This is their leader.

This is how they want the country run. When I hear these names, I don't care about the names anymore. I care about the movement that they have created that makes people fall in line with their fascist beliefs. The reason why we're here is because there was a time not too long ago where you were pushed to the margins with your homophobic, anti-woman, bigoted comments when you lost your job. And now not only do you gain a job, you get a job. you get a fucking promotion. And so I would rather people pay attention to what is happening with the whole

as opposed to these pieces, these individuals, because the collective to me is more dangerous and is worth our energy and attention than pulling out and parsing out one person over another because it still provides the illusion that there are some that are some that are better than others,

when they're all disgusting, when they're all anti-discount, Democratic, when they're all anti-patriots, when they're all anti-progress and anti-American. And that's kind of, that for me is where I'm just like, I want progressives and people in general to stop paying attention to the one person because here's the thing, when you do away with the Donald Trump, when you do away with the Matt Gates or Jim Jordan, the disease has festered. The cancer has already spread. So just doing away with the one cell doesn't rid us of them all. Look, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. And I don't think anyone is shocked. I think shocked is the wrong word. I think people are just saying, hey, here's the deal with this guy. And we didn't really look at him too closely, but now we are. Because, you know, he sort of went from a guy that, again, wasn't in the public eye to a guy who is now. And this is where I slightly disagree with you. Obviously, you're absolutely correct that the rot has fully infested the body of the Republican Party and cutting out one cell ain't going to cure that. But,

Mike Johnson is now, I guess you could say, two heartbeats away from the presidency. And that makes him different just because of the position he holds. If something unimaginable happened, some kind of attack or whatever, this guy could be president. I don't want to get ahead of my skis here. It's never happened in the history of our country. And I would assume and hope that it's not going to happen now. But he is now second in line for the succession of the presidency. I do think it's a big deal and he has to be paid attention to.

Again, it's not, I don't think it's a question of shock. And shock is the wrong word. I think you could maybe raise a little eyebrow at the Republicans selecting him after not selecting Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise and thinking, well, maybe they're smart enough to realize they need someone a little bit more moderate. And then, of course, it turns out they're not. Which, again, is not shocking, but it's a fact. And you look at people like, and I thought about making this guy, my fuck that guy,

Ken Buck, the Republican Congressman from Colorado, who has been all over the news these past two weeks, saying, I'm not voting for Jim Jordan because he's an election denier and he won't admit that Joe Biden is president and he did all of this. And I'm not voting for Steve Scalich for the same reasons. And he was getting all these kudos and plaudits. He voted for Mike Johnson. And he has no good explanation as to why he did this after making this such. It's like he basically rented principles from blockbust. or something and then had to return them. And so, like, for two weeks, he had these principles. And then it was like, ah, shit, these overdue fees are getting huge. I got to bring these principles back. And then he just went, I guess, back to being who he was before two weeks ago. But my point is, like, there were people like him that maybe gave you the tiniest sliver of hope that whatever else they were going to do, maybe they wouldn't sort of put a guy

in the ultimate House leadership position who was an election denialist who makes excuses for January 6th, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And no, they just went ahead and they went full Trumpist. So that's, I think, where this is coming from. But again, I don't know that it's shock. And I think everything you said, like, again, I agree with. But this guy is, as we're learning now, this guy is like among the worst of the worst. Seems on par.

Speaking of the worst of the worst. So I just learned, apparently you're able to storm out of wherever you. you want. Danielle, did you not know that white people, we have free right of storming? Does that come like when you all are born? Is it on the births? Like, is it in the vibrant in the back of birth certificate? Like, what you all are allowed to throw tantrums for and it just be a okay from birth

until death? It's actually, it's a list of what we're not allowed to throw tantrums for because that's a lot smaller. It's smaller. It's smaller for a whole sake. So Donald Trump, this motherfucker, like, I just. Oh my God. So he has had what?

Four people turn on him so far in the Georgia case. And I would just put it out there that the reason why Donald Trump's attorneys, and I use that word lightly, have turned on him, is basically because he wouldn't flip their bills. Jenna Ellis and Giuliani have been begging and tap dancing for resources that apparently Donald Trump does not have or does not want to give up. And so they're like, okay, fuck it then. We'll take the community service.

We'll pretend to cry. and then we'll move on. And so you have that one court case that is playing out. But you have another court case that is playing out that had Donald Trump up in a tizzy in New York after his other attorney, which, by the way, if you get a call that says Trump is looking for an attorney and you like your job and your law license and your freedom, don't pick up the phone. And you want to get paid.

And you want to get paid. Just a word to the wise. not the move y'all think it is. And so Michael Cohen testified this week, who was formerly, we all know, Donald Trump's fixer, he lied for him, he cheated for him, he did a whole bunch of stuff, and he ended up catching a bid for him as well. Well, after his testimony, because Michael Cohen has been singing like Mariah since he got out a prison, he apparently got under Donald Trump's skin this week. And there was drama in the

courtroom and a walkout exit by Donald Trump that had him flanked by Secret Service as he left the courtroom because he was absolutely pissed. He could be overheard saying, unbelievable, unbelievable. I can't even do his fucking tone, repeatedly muttering as he left the courtroom. And this was after Engaron, the judge in the case, fined him $10,000 for violating a gag order barring him from making inflammatory comments about court staff. This comes on top of Engeron previously fining $5,000. And I'm just saying maybe up it to a place that it hurts. Maybe up it to a place where it doesn't seem like Donald Trump's allowance for the day, for his burgers. Like maybe make it, I don't know, $100,000 a fine, $250,000 an order so that it actually

gets to a place where it hurts. I mean, he ain't going to pay it anyway, right? We all know that about Trump. If I'm saying, here's the fine. You cough up the money. If you don't cough up the money, not only am I going to increase it like I'm the bank with percentage. Do you know what I'm saying? But I'm also going to throw your ass in jail until you come up with the funds. Here's my Enmo, cash at me. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Right.

Exactly. That's what we need. I know we're not talking about Michael Cohen here. Michael, Michael Cohen was horrible on the stand, and everyone knew that that was going to be the case. It was really bad. But I'll get back to the subject at hand and let my personal vendetta drop. Mm-hmm.

Look, this is going to be continuous or continual or whatever the right form of that word is. Like you said, he's been fined $5,000. Now it's $10,000. I mean, it's just he can. can't keep his mouth shut. We know that. And he's going to continue to violate this gag order. And I've seen a lot of arguments. And I don't just mean from the right, but I've seen arguments that this gag order is not the best in the world. But it doesn't matter right now because it's in effect. And he cannot help himself. I was going to say he's so easily goaded, but he doesn't even need goading.

He just does it. He's going to keep direct, like, like he's going after law clerks. He's going after people like that. And this is what he does. You know, he is, he's just, for lack of a better word, his whole life, he's just been a bully. And he goes after people with less power than him. And he goes after people who can't defend themselves. I mean, a law clerk can't get out there and hold a press conference and, you know, deny ridiculous charges that she's Chuck Schumer's girlfriend. And he knows that. So he knows he can just, he'll just go out there and say shit like that. And the people he's saying it about can't do anything about it. And we saw that, you know, even in Georgia, we saw that with Miss Ruby and her daughter.

You know, he goes after people that he knows he can bully and get away with it, at least up to a point. And it's absolutely gross behavior. And like you said, this $10,000 to him is it's chump change or Trump change, I guess, whatever you want to call it. And, you know, the other thing is, like, he'll, I'm assuming he actually is going to have to pay these fines because, like you said, if he doesn't, he could have repercussions. So I'm sort of sure his lawyers are like, look, you actually for once have to pay a bill. But all he'll do, no matter how high these bills get, he'll just fundraise. He'll fundraise and raise the money. And it'll be a bunch of poor saps out there who, for some reason, continue to believe him and continue to support him.

and you'll get someone who really can't afford it, you know, kicking in a hundred bucks or something like that to his defense fund. That'll go to pay these fines. So, again, none of this is going to hurt him. I guess the only question is, you know, at a certain point, is it, is there a judge out there who's going to say, enough is enough? You're going to spend some time in a jail cell. And I don't know that there is. I mean, well, right now we have Jack Smith, who is also asking another judge in Washington, D.C., Judge Chunkin. to add on to the gag order that he is requested for Trump violating and putting information out

about potential jurors or threatening potential jurors and saying to add on jail time. Fuck your fines is basically what Jack Smith is saying because this is not, none of this is going to stop until someone gets killed. That's the reality. That is the sad, sad reality that we are in is that we will wait just, justice will wait these judges will wait until someone is killed and then it'll be like oh my god we never saw this coming really really so at some point somebody has to have some real courage stop giving these slaps on the wrist and start treating Donald Trump like the fucking criminal ass defendant that he is

and placing him in a space where the money either hurts or you take away his freedom because at some point without doing those two things, someone is going to get killed. Yeah, and it's just, you know, I was looking through the coverage of this, and it's just insane. I'm looking at a Huffington Post article, and this is a sentence they had to write. The gag order in Washington, D.C. is not to be confused with the one that Trump violated Wednesday at his civil financial fraud trial in New York City. It's just, it's unreal that they had to write that, and I feel like I have to say it, Danielle. This truly is the new abnormal. Oh, dear God.

As you know by now, Republicans have chosen a new speaker of the House, Louisiana's Mike Johnson. And when I say Republicans have chosen, I mean precisely that. Johnson did not garner a single vote from Democrats. And in fact, the Dems started warning people about Johnson's views almost immediately. Here to tell us more is Washington Bureau Chief for Semaphore. Benji Sarland. Benji, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Andy. So as you point out in the piece you co-wrote at Semaphore, terms like hard right and extremist and, well, well, hard-right extremists are what Democrats are using to describe Johnson. And the top Democrat in the

House, minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, referred to Johnson as a, quote, top election denier. Another term I've seen used a lot in describing his role in Trump's various schemes is key architect. So let's start there. Why did Jeffries describe him that way? Why are people calling him one of the architects of the whole 2020 election denialism thing? Right. And for the purpose of this, let's stipulate that almost every Republican who was running for Speaker voted against certifying the election. They all were pretty much anomaly in Trump's graces, with the exception of the person who got defeated right before Mike Johnson. And that's arguably the leading reason why they got defeated is that they voted to certify the election. That was pretty much their big sin. So starting within that,

with that stipulated here, yeah, Mike Johnson's ties to this are a lot further than many of those Republicans. He was deeply involved in trying to assemble the legal briefs that they were using to try to overturn election results in court. He was sort of Trump's house liaison. They were, you know, in frequent contact about how they were going to handle their various objections in the run up to January 6. And the way he talked about this stands out as well. One of the funny things about that period after the election, but before January 6th is that even a lot of the most kind of pro-Trump conservative types who were trying to get ahead of this issue, even people like a Ted Cruz or a Josh Hawley, the ones who actually registered the objections in the Senate, they were often

really embarrassed by the kind of arguments that Trump and people like Sidney Powell, you know, are now taking pleadials, were actually making at the time. They were very reluctant to sound like Rudy Giuliani. So you often heard a lot of like special pleading about how, you know, well, this state changed the rules using this commission, but we think that was unconstitutional. It should have been this commission or this state legislature. What you didn't usually hear was that, you know, Hugo Chavez's ghost is like uploading votes via Dominion, like the kind of stuff that led to like defamation lawsuits later. Right. Mike Johnson, total exception.

I mean, I was just listening to, he was going on the radio and proudly tweeting out his radio hits at the time talking about exactly that, talking about Dominion software and how there's a lot of merit to this, calling the election rigged, like outright saying like individual states were rigged. The election was rigged in much further language than you normally heard, even. from Republicans who were taking Trump's side for this. So he's not like some bit player in this. He was like he was front and center in the election denial efforts. He was just full on enthrall to Trump or however you want to describe it. So we start with that as an example of how extreme he is on economic issues. He's part of a group of Republicans that wants to basically minimize or eliminate entitlement programs, raise the retirement age, etc. Right. Yeah. So this is an interesting thing that unites a lot of the

major speaker candidates. There's a group called the Republican Study Committee that's been around for decades in the House. It's often been kind of a stepping stone to prominence. And their main job is putting out this kind of fantasy budget every year, you know, that goes out alongside the actual budget they pass, which is, you know, if conservatives had their way, this is what we would do. It's meant to be a blueprint that they can show that they're, you know, true believers on this. And this is what small government conservatives would really want to do. So Steve Scalise used to run this. Jim Jordan used to run this, and Mike Johnson used to run this pretty recently just a couple of years ago. And Democrats love this group because it is like an opposition research bonanza.

Like President Biden's team has like constantly cited budgets they've put out, things they've tried to get a vote on because they often include things like, for example, their proposal just this year, raising the retirement age to 69 was this year. Prior proposals have been 70. A lot of the Paul Ryan type plans, you might remember, to partially privatize Medicare. Those often go through that group and show up in their budgets, even after the party has largely moved on from them, you know, in terms of actually trying to pass them. So it means that Mike Johnson has a lot of ties to economic plans that Democrats were already highlighting throughout the year and also even in midterm ads. This is one of those kind of stealth issues. I don't think people appreciate how much Democrats still run on old fashioned. We're going to protect Social Security and Medicare, even in things like the 2020 and the 2022 midterms. Like they put real money behind ads on that. It's like a real part of their message. And so if they can do anything that ties any candidate to some of the more unpopular cuts or changes, it's seen as like a pretty big deal for them. So they're definitely, they were already pouring through the Republican Study Committee's

various positions because of Scalise and Jordan before. Now they get to do it again for Johnson. Okay. So let's talk social issues, starting with abortion. Johnson is about as conservative as someone can be on this, right? Up and to an and including wanting a national abortion ban. Yeah, this is what I would say is one of Johnson's core animated issues. Like the tradition he came out of specifically was very religious social conservatives in sort of

the Bush era. And abortion obviously was a huge part of that. And Louisiana has one of the most restrictive abortion bans. It's near total in the country. When it came out, he was celebrating. When Roe v. Wade felt he was celebrating. He was bragging on Twitter about, or X now, I guess, about how doctors who violated can

expect to do one to 10 years hard labor. a quote that Democrats were passing around a lot. There's a lot of debate team arguments about abortion that, especially people who never have had to deal with swing voters in any way, often will make and then find somewhat less receptive audiences outside of them. So he's made a lot of like social and economic arguments against abortion, too, that of getting some attention. One is at a house hearing, this got some attention at the time.

It's one of the rare times he's sort of broken through in national news. He made the case that it's a good thing that we're responsible. abortion because it'll force women to have more babies who will become workers, and that will increase the tax base for Medicare and Social Security. That kind of got some attention there. He's made arguments in the past. My old colleague, Arin Carmon, actually interviewed him in 2015 on abortion when he was helping before he was a congressman, when he was a lawyer defending various abortion

restricts on clinics. And he was talking then about how the rise of abortion is tied to school shootings and things like that, that it's one of those social ills, that we've created a culture of death, and now we have school shootings. And they're responsible for all sorts of terrible trends in American society. And of course, he signed on to, you know, some of the bills that have passed around the past that have been some kind of national abortion restriction. This is an issue that is obviously extremely important to him personally. I mean, this is, his faith is kind of central to his politics, and abortion is central to those politics as well. You hinted at his being part of this, you know,

before he was in Congress, being part of this group. I'm assuming you're talking about the alliance defending freedom, the Christian legal group. So as you would assume, his views on LGBTQ rights are right up there with his views on abortion. Yeah. Again, getting back to the idea that his origin story, you know, to the extent it exists is like very much these Bush-era culture wars. That was the big culture war then. The dominant issue was gay rights and then eventually gay marriage. And then it culminated eventually in gay marriage becoming the consensus position on the country. And people sort of moved on to other things. Now the conversation is still, there's an LGBT backlash is the biggest since then now, but it is mostly avoided talk around gay marriage.

It's mostly been about other topics. So back then, he was very much the fire and brimstone kind of gay rights opponents. In a way that was retro even at the time, if you remember then a lot of the arguments against gay marriage that would come from someone like George W. Bush when he was running for re-election were very like kind of vague and euphemistic. We're about like the defense of marriage, that this will somehow undermine the institution of marriage. You got a lot more attention if you were someone like Rick Santorum at the time who was talking about this will lead to, you know, man on dog relations. That was stuff that really marked you

even among Republicans as unusually far out on this issue. Mike Johnson was very much one of those guys. Like he specifically said, this will lead to people marrying their pets. He opposed decriminalizing gay sex, again, in very religious terms, talking about it's an inherently sinful lifestyle, it's dangerous, opposing things like domestic partnerships then that were seen. a kind of compromise for people who didn't want to go all the way towards gay marriage. He was really full spectrum on this extremely involved in this issue in ways that, you know, maybe don't play well now. And one interesting thing is that, you know, a lot of Republicans are not used to talking about this period now because the Supreme Court sort of ended the issue for them. And then

they rarely got asked about it again. So it was very interesting when Congress did pass a bill that would protect gay marriage in the event the Supreme Court reversed those protections. You know, it was the first time a lot of Republicans had to vote on an issue like this and reveal their hands and say how they felt about it now. And so I think it's going to be very interesting. You know, Mike Johnson, he hasn't done a major interview yet. He's been avoiding a lot of questions at press conferences on policy. But it will be interesting to hear his thoughts, how they've evolved now, whether he expects us to be an issue at all going forward. I am going to be curious how he massages this issue. Well, my guess is, since I don't think he believes in evolution that

his thoughts haven't evolved. And along those lines, he is, I mean, he is a hardcore event. And by hardcore, I mean, he is a true believer. It's not a grift. It's not for show. It's he is a true believer and a borderline, if not full on Christian nationalist and theocrat who, in addition to abortion and LGBTQ rights, wants to do away with things like birth control and even divorce. I'd have to dig deeper into the record on all of that. But the whole country is kind of vetting this guy in real time right now. It's like the amount of like oppo pitches everyone is getting. You hear Republican Center saying that they're Googling him right now. This is not someone anyone was familiar with. And part of the way he was chosen, it was so sudden, right? It was a matter of hours that he went from being like obscure person to suddenly the speaker designate to suddenly the speaker that there's never even been like a real profile of this guy in the news, like a major in-depth profile of this guy. He just like appeared out of nowhere. There was no trial balloon period. But I will say within some of the things you're talking about, yes, a lot of his arguments were that various church and state separations were legal fictions to

some degree and were over-applied and unfairly applied to block out what he saw as legitimate interactions between government and faith. Re-marriage, yes, he was very supportive of types of marriage agreements that make it harder to get divorced, which was, again, another kind of Bush-era cause, this idea of trying to find ways to discourage divorce and put people in longer and hopefully healthier marriages. It kind of fell out of fashion. It's sort of been coming back a little now on the right. Yeah, I mean, this is a guy whose faith was just very, very tied into his politics.

It informed what he talked about and it informed very much how he talked about it. And you're seeing that even now. I mean, he talks a lot about the power of prayer, how much he was praying during this period, how much his wife was praying during this period. This is a man whose beliefs are very important to his character. Let's get to an important point that you made in your piece. There were Democrats who seem to think that choosing Johnson is going to backfire on Republicans electorally.

that his extreme anti-abortion views, for example, are going to hurt the party with women voters, which is something we've already seen in elections held since Roe has been overturned. This sounds like a legitimate argument, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, Democrats have had a pretty consistent strategy since Biden's election, and it so far worked pretty well, even while Biden himself has been incredibly unpopular almost this entire time. And it's pretty much been a three-legged stool, I'd say, which is one is the, election denial stuff, which cost Republicans a ton of races in 2022 and the most important ones. The other one is abortion. I mean, they just have been racking up wins by saying they will

protect or try to restore abortion rights and Republicans will try to restrict them. And it's really divided the Republican Party. It's one of the issues in the Republican presidential primaries, which fun fact are still going on. It's one of the issues that's been the most divisive there over how they should talk about it and what position they should take. It's a real problem for Republicans, and this guy is very clearly on one spectrum of it. It's very one side of the spectrum. It's very easy to paint him this way. And then the third leg is what I mentioned, the entitlement stuff. Democrats as defender of health care, as defender of Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, that's an area where they feel he fits in two. I mean, one way to think of

this on their end is that there's a lot of pro-Trump conservatives who sort of celebrated Trump because they saw them as moving past this era of George W. Bush religious conservatism, moving past this era of Paul Ryan fiscal conservatism, and moving towards this new more populist angle that maybe downplayed some of those old social issues to bring in more secular northern voters, say, in places like Michigan or Wisconsin, and also brought in some of those voters who were more working class and more skeptical of changes to entitlement programs. This is a guy who seems equally steeped in all three of these branches of conservatives. It's social, fiscal, Trump.

It's like whatever baggage they've had in any era that some group of Republicans has tried to shed, he's got it. So in that sense, Democrats are pretty enthusiastic because they know how to run against people like that. Now, you might ask, okay, so why did they pick him? Because all the moderates who rejected someone like Jim Jordan pick this guy, right? You know, it's the same people. So a few answers that. One is, and I think this is often true, the speaker usually doesn't matter that much in terms of elections.

The top of the ticket usually matters more. So we've definitely heard some moderates say, you know, look, yeah, maybe this is, maybe this was back when Jim Jordan was considered, you know, saying like, you know, it wouldn't be great for us if Jim Jordan was speaker, but it'll be Donald Trump at the top of the ticket, and that's ultimately what people are going to care about much more, right? We don't think this filters across. So that's one thing. The other is that, and this is a big difference between Mike Johnson and Jim George.

You know, everyone uses the same description of someone like Jim Jordan, like attack dog, bulldog, you know, firebrand. Nobody talks that way about Mike Johnson. Like, he sounds like Mr. Smith goes to Washington. And having a public persona can go a long way in both convincing people on your own side that maybe you're not that conservative, that radical. You know, he seems temperamentally very conservative, you know, at a good way to them. But it can also make it a little bit of a harder sell to voters. You know, Trump and Republicans have a hard time convincing people off and that President Biden is, as progressive and far left as he is in real life. Because you look at Joe Biden, you don't think it.

Right. Right. It's really hard to convince people that that is like the face of DSA or something. You know, it's not easy. So that stuff, I know people hate talking about the theater of it, but it does matter. It really does matter. I was going to ask you if any moderate Republicans are worried about this even, you know, privately or off the record. But I guess a lot of it is it's too soon to even judge that. But I was thinking, is he the most conservative House Speaker in modern times? The only other one I could think of who might challenge him for that is Newt Gingrich. But even Gingrich feels kind of downright libertarian compared to Johnson, I think. It's really hard to compare because conservatism changes so much from era to era. Conservative is very much, and this is often a knock on

it, that it doesn't have like a great programmatic agenda often. But it is also somewhat the point of conservatism is whatever is the dominant progressive trend that day to be the counterterrorism. to it. So it often changes a lot. What they were talking about then is often very different than now. But yeah, I mean, if you had to pick someone, you know, certainly from this party, who's kind of that full spectrum conservative on all these issues, he'd be close to the furthest out. But again, we're talking about different metrics, right? I mean, if you were talking about, for example, you know, ties to extremist groups or something, there are members who would be way ahead of him. You know, this is not someone who's had, as far as I know, we'll see the vetting.

haven't heard, for example, attachments to like white nationalist groups the way you hear about, say, a Paul Gosar or something, or a Marjorie Taylor Green who's spoken in front of them and has to defend that. It's much less that strain as far as I can tell. Benji, thanks so much for coming on and sort of walking us through who Mike Johnson is. I really appreciate it. And hopefully we'll have you back soon. Yeah, always happy to come. Folks, you know that whenever I have the opportunity to bring some of my favorite people onto the new abnormal,

I am always thrilled in Glenn Kirchner, the host of Justice Metz. and MSNBC legal analyst, 30-year former federal prosecutor is one of my favorites, particularly when my God, I can't keep track, Glenn, of all of the legal court cases, all of the legal drama that is engulfing Donald Trump and his sycophants. First off, I want to start off, I guess down in Georgia, and then we'll work our way up to New York. Georgia right now, Farnie Willis had 19 defendants, including Donald Trump. Four of them have now pled guilty, are experiencing anywhere from community service hours, fines, letters that they have to read out in court.

The latest is Jenna Ellis, who I don't believe Jenna Ellis's crocodile tears for one damn moment. I know good goddamn well that if Donald Trump had decided to pay her legal fees, she would be singing a different tune. But tell us your read on how things are transpiring down in Georgia in that. case and the electoral fraud case and how you think Donald Trump and his current team are experiencing that. Yeah, Trump is being prosecuted up and down the eastern seaboard. Pretty remarkable. And what I see going on down in Georgia leads me to conclude that district attorney Fannie Willis is expertly executing the RICO playbook. You know, the way she is strategically pleading people out, you know, she started with Scott Hall, the bail bondsman who was Sidney Powell's partner in the

Coffey County voting machine crimes. So the Scott Hall Domino banged into Sidney Powell. The Sidney Powell Domino went tumbling over. It's going to bang into Rudy Giuliani because she can give him up hard. She also went after Kenneth Chesbrough, one of the architects of the fake elector scheme. That domino is in the process of banging into John Eastman. The other one who was deeply involved in the fake elector scheme. She's got the Jenna Ellis domino that has now toppled over. And, you know, that is also banging into the Rudy Giuliani domino because Rudy and Jenna were joined at the hip in some of the false statements they made to state legislatures.

And I was so excited when I was watching Jenna Ellis's guilty plea hearing. I don't know. She seemed so genuinely remorse. No, she didn't. She seemed like she was full of you know what. Right. But here's what's so important. What she swore to under oath as part of her guilty plea was that she aided and abetted

Rudy Giuliani's false claims of voter fraud not only in Georgia, but in Arizona and in Michigan and in Pennsylvania. And we should be seeing criminal indictments coming out of those states based on the admissions Jenna Ellis made in her Georgia government. guilty plea and Rudy should also be charged in those states. So she is putting together a prosecution that will probably, Danielle, be winnowed down to maybe, it could be Trump standing alone at the end of the day because all of the sort of folks who are on the lowest rung of the criminal ladder, all these fake electors, they're all going to plead out. And I think lots of the other upper

echelon like John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark may plead out as well. So you may just have a trial with Donald Trump standing alone or maybe Trump and Meadows together. But I just think Fawney Willis has been proven right to bring a broad sweeping RICO case trying to hold everybody accountable who broke Georgia state law. You know, I think too that what, you know, many people were saying, she shouldn't have brought this wide sweeping case and charged all. of these people. And to your point, we're watching one by one, them turn over and realize, one, they don't have the deep pockets that Donald Trump does. They don't have the ability to grift off a constituency the way that he does in order to pay for their legal fees. And after a

while, your resources are going to dry up and realize that the only person that's standing beside you is your shadow because Donald Trump has long left you. And I think that is what we are going to see continue to play out in Georgia. I want to move now to recent reporting that was substantiated by ABC, and this was with regard to Mark Meadows. And Mark Meadows, in the federal case, one that Jack Smith has brought potentially signing an immunity deal. Now, we know that Mark Meadows is also charged in the state in Georgia alongside these other co-defendants. So I just wanted to get your read on that reporting of immunity with the federal case and what, if anything, that means for Georgia and that means for Trump at large? Yeah, that's a big topic. And let me tell you, immunity is not a

prosecutor's friend. Immunity is my least favorite way to extract information from a witness like Mark Meadows. Why do I say that? When a guy like Mark Meadows, who undoubtedly has incriminating evidence against Donald Trump and Jack Smith wanted it. it. I understand that. But Mark Meadows also has criminal culpability. I have absolutely no doubt. He was engaged in all kinds of wrongdoing together with Donald Trump. When somebody like Mark Meadows has evidence that you want to extract from him, there are basically three ways of getting it. One, you subpoena him and force him to testify in the grand jury, but he has a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. So you can because his Fifth Amendment right trumps a grand jury

subpoena. All he has to do is plead the fifth. So the second way to explain. So the second way to extract evidence from him is you charge him for his crimes. You negotiate a plea deal and you have him testified truthfully against others in exchange for a benefit, a reduced guilty plea or maybe a cap on the time he will have to serve in prison. But the reason that is the preferred way to get evidence out of somebody, it's because he has to take responsibility for his own crimes and he gets punished for his own crimes. And that makes him a more credible witness when prosecutors put him on the stand against Donald Trump. The least preferred method is to just give him immunity, give him a pass, give him a complete walk on his democracy busting crimes that he committed with and for the benefit

of Donald Trump. And then put him up on the stand and urge a jury to believe him. Wait a minute, sport, you haven't had to take accountability for your own crimes. Why would we? believe you when you start to talk about the crimes of others. And, you know, I've seen some really robust cross-examination of immunized witnesses that goes something like, wait a minute, Mark, the prosecutor sitting right there, gave you a pass for all your crimes. You are going to say anything that prosecutor wants you to say to incriminate Donald Trump because you want to keep currying favor with the prosecutor and you don't want to go to prison. I don't want to overstate the case because it may be that Jack Smith gave him a very sort of limited scope, use immunity and

asked 10 questions and said, look, I just want to know these 10 things about what you heard Donald Trump say or what you saw Donald Trump do. And that's all I'm going to ask you about. And so maybe Jack Smith still intends to either indict Mark Meadows in the future or to negotiate some kind of a guilty plea with cooperation from Mark Meadows. But my mind immediately goes to Oliver North, Danielle, because during the Iran-Contra affair, Oliver North committed all kinds of crimes. He was indicted. He was prosecuted. He was convicted. And he was imprisoned. But before he went to trial, Congress granted him immunity. And he testified and he incriminated himself. And that resulted in his conviction getting busted on appeal because the prosecutors couldn't prove that none of what

he said in his immunized testimony didn't creep back into the investigation and ultimately get used against him. So the cautionary tale is once you grant somebody immunity, it can make it very difficult to ever prosecute them successfully. Not impossible, but very difficult. So I didn't celebrate the news that there was some form of immunity granted to Mark Meadows and he was compelled to testify about the crimes of Donald Trump in the grand jury. In a vacuum, that's a good thing. Yeah. But it has potentially bad implications.

I hear all the points of that because I got to tell you that when I heard the news, I wasn't jumping up and down and saying, oh, that's great. Now, if the deal had been he pleased to lesser charges, then great. But the idea that he would then be able to get off Scott Free, and we know that this man had turned his office into a furnace as he was burning papers, we know that Mark Meadows is not an innocent man. I want to go now up to the request that Jack Smith put in with Judge Chunkin, which is essentially to up the gag order that he has asked for and has requested in that case

to add jail time. Now, Glenn, you and I have been talking about this for quite some time. The authority that judges have in effectively saying, you're done. You do this again. you step out of line, here are more fines or here is the jail cell. So what do you make now of this request to Judge Chunkin and we'll get to New York and Enger on in a minute? But like, are any of these judges up to the task of holding Donald Trump accountable like a normal citizen would be held accountable for the threatening language that he has been using and the danger that he's putting

potential jurors as well as law clerks and other people? I don't know. I have tremendous respect for Judge Chutkin, having tried murder cases against her back in the day when she was a public defender and I was a prosecutor. We always had a great professional relationship. We continue to have a good relationship. I have the utmost respect in regard for her. So I say all that because when you ask me, Danielle, is any judge up to the task of jailing him pending trial because he so richly deserves it. And that is what the law and the facts dictate should happen. I don't know. Let me put it this way. If anybody is up to the task, it is Judge Tanya Chutkin. And, you know, there is a way to sidestep all of this absurd

First Amendment gag order litigation that has been ongoing. Judge Chutkin put a pretty serious gag order in place, then the defense said, can you please pause it, an administrative stay while we appeal it and file some more briefs? And she said, yes, I will temporarily pause it. And Donald Trump runs out and posts over and over against stuff that would have violated the order she just paused. You know, there's a way to sidestep at all. It's called pretrial detention. And here is what just burns my ass. We've got tens of thousands of people sitting in pretrial detention right now in jurisdictions all across this nation who are far less dangerous to the community, to society, to democracy than is Donald Trump. The law was properly applied to them because there was

clear and convincing evidence they were a danger to the community or a flight risk. And it is not being applied to Donald Trump. That is what kills the notion of equal justice, equal application of the laws. They can sidestep all this gag order nonsense by applying the law as it was intended to be applied to Donald Trump and detain him pending trial. Jack Smith, in this 32-page pleading, is moving in that direction. And I think he's going to urge Judge Chutkin to move in that direction revoking Donald Trump on release. We're not there yet, but I think we may get there. What would the argument be? One that isn't grounded in bullshit, Glenn.

What would the argument be for Donald Trump to continue to be released on his own recognizance? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, where do you look and you say, no, he must stay free because of X, Y, and Z? Like, what would the argument be? Yeah, that's a great question. I want to answer it by quoting one sentence from Jack Smith's pleading. Jack Smith says there has never been a criminal case in which a court has granted a defendant,

an unfettered right to try his case in the media, malign the presiding judge as a fraud and a hack, attack the prosecutor as a deranged thug, and after promising witnesses and others, if you go after me, I'm coming after you, target specific witnesses with attacks on their character and credibility, even suggesting that one witness's actions warrant the punishment of death. There has never, never been a defendant who has been permitted that unfettered right that Donald Trump has thus far been permitted. And it makes a mockery of our criminal justice system. Listen, our institutions of government have shown they're not up to the challenge of treating

this ruling class criminal the way the law and the law. the facts dictate he must be treated. They're not up to the task. Maybe they're going to catch up, maybe. But, you know, I don't wish away a day of my life or anybody else's life. But at this point, I can't wait until March 4th because Judge Chutkin said, and I quote, this trial will not yield to an election cycle and we will not revisit the March 4th trial date. So March 4th can't come quickly enough. Okay. So last stop on the Trump train is New York. and Judge Ngron and Donald Trump this week storming, storming out of the courtroom. Tell us what you make of Michael Collins' testimony, whether or not it was good, it sticks,

the continued, again, fining of Donald Trump and team. Again, this is a different gag order, folks. We're talking about New York now. Tell us the breakdown of where we stand with that. Yeah, so I was thrilled when Judge Ngoron issued a, a snap gag order to stop Donald Trump from endangering his clerk, his staff, the judge's staff. But I was also disheartened because it shows one, judges certainly can impose gag orders. And two, wouldn't it be nice if they would impose gag orders that protected witnesses and not just

members of their own staff with whom they're very close and of whom they feel very protective? That, you know what, there's a lot to dislike in that unequal application of the law as well. I hate to always look for the dark cloud in front of the silver lining, but there's no justice if there's not equal justice, and we are not experiencing equal justice. With respect to Michael Cohen's testimony, I think it was a mixed bag. He obviously was involved in massive systemic fraud, business fraud, with and at the direction of Donald Trump. And remember now, Donald Trump has already lost this trial because Judge Ngeron granted partial summary judgment finding Donald Trump was involved in this systemic fraud. So now we're just talking about disgorgement, how much he should be made to pay back to the taxpayers of New York. But, you know, Michael Cohen's testimony was also attacked pretty effectively from time to time when, for example, he said, I lied when I pleaded guilty. I lied in federal court when I raised my right hand, swore to tell the truth because every defendant who pleads guilty is placed under oath before they plead guilty. And I just lied because the prosecutors were threatening me and threatening my wife. So I just pleaded guilty to things I didn't do.

That obviously damages somebody's credibility pretty significantly. Now, the fact that Michael Cohen is an admitted liar, well, you have to lay that at the feet of Donald Trump because who is it that selected Michael Cohen as a witness in this case, not Tish James, Donald Trump, because it was Donald Trump's criminal associate. You know, I told every single jury when I had cruddy, ugly witnesses who were not very appealing, maybe they were cooperators who had flipped. used to tell my jury, you know, ladies and gentlemen, if the defendant chose to commit this murder in the parking lot of the Shiloh Baptist Church right up the street at 1 p.m. on a Sunday, you know who the witnesses would be? A whole bunch of parishioners, choir members, churchgoers. That's not the circumstances under which this defendant committed this murder. The defendant chose the witnesses by deciding when and how he would commit the crime. Donald Trump chose the witness, Michael

Cohen by deciding to be in criminal business with him. So he may not be pure as the driven snow, but that was Donald Trump's man. Well, Glenn, we will leave it there today, but I know that we will pick it up again another day very, very soon. My friend, I appreciate all of your deep analysis and my God, the navigation through this web. Appreciate you. We'll get there, though. We'll get there. Thanks, Danielle. Andy Levy. Andy Levy, how are we closing out this Godforsaken week in this country with your fuck that guy? So I know we always say there's so much to choose from and there really was like this week, even more so I feel like than usual. So I'm going to go a little off script for a bit and I'm going to go with the Washington Times is a newspaper in D.C.

It's obviously not as big as Washington Post, but it's, you know, it's red and particularly by people in D.C. it's red. It's a right-wing newspaper, and it has lost its damn mind. This was earlier in the week on Monday. They published an editorial. This was an, well, an op-ed. The headline was, Orlando Shame as Boy 11 parades in Princess Gound for LGBTQ crowd. So already, you know, it's going to be a hell of an article. And it was written by a woman named Cheryl Chumley. I wasn't going to pick this because I thought, some weirdo just wrote a really bad op-ed. And then I looked her up, and it turns out she is the online opinion editor for the Washington Times. Oh, dear God. So she's part of the power structure at the Washington Times. So this is not just some

random. So I'm just going to read you a little bit of what she wrote. Her thing starts. An 11-year-old boy pretending to be a girl, because in large part, his parents have pushed him to believe that. Okay, so she starts with that. She goes on to write, the sick evil people, along with the boy's sick, evil parents will one day face an unimaginable wrath. And then she quotes Matthew chapter 18, verse 6. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me. It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. So she is taking her little biblical narrative and saying that all these people who are trying to let this kid live their life are sick and evil and that they're all

going to be punished in, I guess, eternal hellfire or whatever. And it is just, it is mind-boggling to me that a newspaper of, again, it's not the Washington Post, it's not the New York Times, but it's not nothing. It's the Washington Times. It's amazing to me that a newspaper of this stature would publish filth like this. And it's so absolutely, disgusting and disgraceful. And I don't, the idea of opening a newspaper and reading a sentence that says, children need to be told who they are in Christ when they're young and impressionable. And I'm just looking at this. Like, this is a newspaper in our nation's capital. I don't even know what else to say about it, except these are horrible, horrible people. And I personally think that Matthew 186 is

going to apply to them, but that's just my opinion. Fuck these guys. Cheryl can go to hell, which I'm sure is where she will find herself, a grown woman taking to a newspaper that she is part of the leadership in. To shame a child is disgusting and is bullying and she should be sued as well as the entire outlet for slander and for whatever else. because the language that she used was threatening and the lawyers for the Washington Times should be put on notice. Fuck her. Fuck that entire outlet. The entire outlet is trash.

I've lived in D.C. Yeah. You should line kitty litter with it. Not your cat because I know it's progressive. Yes, absolutely. Yes. She would not even. She would not.

She would not. She would not go in the litter box. Exactly. Daniel, who is your fuck that guy? It's someone who honestly, I think this is their first appearance, at least with me being a fuck that guy. And it is a woman because we are equal opportunists here. And the women of the Republican Party are really abhorrent and disgusting. So Representative Virginia Fox, you would think that at a certain age, after being in Congress for a certain amount of time, you would have some grace about you.

That is not her. She essentially showed herself to be, I don't know, an elderly Bobert, an elderly fucking Taylor Green. When Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House, was asked by a reporter, you know, about his own voting record, this piece of trash yelled shut up at the reporters and get away from these damned reporters. and just like all of these, I don't even know. Like, I saw the video. I watched it twice.

And I'm just like, he's being asked about his own record. Like, and so now that's off limits as well. Like, you all are proud to be anti-democratic. You are proud to be trying to overturn our democracy. But when you were asked point blank about it, we should all shut up. Virginia Fox, I wish that you would shut the fuck up. And I wish all of you would. So for that reason, welcome.

Welcome. Welcome to the hall of fuck that guy. It's your first appearance, but I doubt it will be your last. Yeah. This is a woman who voted against aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina. This is a woman who believes that there should be absolutely no exceptions to justify abortion. It goes on from there. She is a real winner.

I think you're right that this. She's made a mistake, Danielle. She's gotten on our radar. Yeah. And it's going to be hell for her. from now on. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.

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